their hanging woods, and within a mile or so of the straggling village
she had just driven through. At last, after much wandering, she was to
find a home--a real home of her own. The word "home" had not meant
much--or much at least that was agreeable--to her, till now. Her large
but handsome mouth took a bitter fold as she thought over various past
events.

Now they had left the village behind, and were passing through fields
that were soon to be her fields. Her keen eyes appraised the crops
standing in them. She had paid the family of her predecessor a good
price for them, but they were worth it. And just ahead, on her left, was
a wide stretch of newly-ploughed land rising towards a bluff of grassy
down-land on the horizon. The ploughed land itself had been down up to a
few months before this date; thin pasture for a few sheep, through many
generations. She thought with eagerness of the crops she was going to
make it bear, in the coming year. Wheat, or course. The wheat crops all
round the village were really magnificent. This was going to be the
resurrection year for English farming, after fifty years of "death and
damnation"--comparatively. And there would be many good years to come
after.

Yes, Mr. Thomas Wellin, whose death had thrown the farm which she had now
taken on the market, had done well for the land. And it was not his fault
but the landlord's that the farmhouse and buildings had been allowed to
fall into such a state. Mr. Wellin had not wanted the house, since he was
only working the land temporarily in addition to his own farm half a mile
away. But the owner, Colonel Shepherd, ought to have looked after the
farmhouse and buildings better. Still, they were making her a fair
allowance for repairs.